Out of interest, do you think you "understood" the film, or that it at least made sense to you? Can't say I did.

I think about an hour made conventional sense but then after that I didn't understand much at all. Saying that I don't think it matters because what I love in Lynch is the bizarre imagery, the sounds, the atmosphere he generates. Plot is usually very much secondary.

My own interpretation, of course. It did help to talk about it afterwards and realise that there were three narratives within this film.. a whole heap of sub plots, and of course, some completely indulgent Lynch moments.

The Rabbits were a commentary on society as a whole.. how we are effectively trapped into conformist ideals and conditioning by television and what is preached at us... a bit like 'battery hens' but in this instance, rabbits reflecting the darkest corner of our minds...

So a fourth shadow is interesting in that that could be the very 'darkest' point of our brains... Rabbits representing our inner conscious streams and thoughts.

I'm still forumlating an entire opinion on this and thinking of the film as only saw it last night but this is where I see it stemming towards.

I'd actually really like to watch and research more about the entire rabbit series and write about it.

I fekin' loved them.

I want pictures of them for my bedroom - the colours would work nicely.
The canned laughter representing futher societal conditioning... how we are supposed to think and feel - how television has mushed and numbed our brains. Almost a comment on reality tv... what is reality? What is TV? Where do the lines blurr, stop, and so forth...

I can't go on and the above is a bit of free flow but I think I totaly got where Lynch was coming from with this. I mean, look at teh start of the film - the talk show.

In a sense, he is giving a bit WANK UP to Hollywood and the entire industry. Brave. Commendable. And as a result won't earn him an Oscar although the entire film should be awarded this accolade.

It seemed like a superficially bizarre but conversely even more effective and far less cliched way of commenting on brain-dead television. Beyond the obvious of just using scenes of a really bad hyper-real sitcom, all massive smiles and day-glo faces.

The film was incredibly effective at questioning barriers between film and reality etc. It seems like an incerdibly obvious mechanism but I haven't seen it often handled so well. I especially liked the scene where Laura Dern "died" and then although you realised it was being filmed, she didn't get up for quite a while so you were questioning whether she had actually died in the film.

"I have a cousin in Pomino who has a pet monkey and she wears a blonde wig, and even the girls fall in love with her... She has a hole in her vagina that goes through to her intestines..."

The symbolism behind the language (vagina - new life, intestines - expelling waste, and the fact that there is a HOLE and missing gap where new life begins... leading to a waste land of sorts (the intestines) and despair... ) The overall portrayal of women...

did she step briefly into the "rabbit" set at one point, or was that just my imagination? I think it was around the point I ran out of sweets and my attention wandered to thinking about blue and pink cola bottles and little skulls full of red blood stuff.

I'm not that keen on categorical statements like "The rabbits were HER" when it comes to Lynch's films - it feels too much like trying to decipher and pin something which doesn't have a single interpretation or meaning, when there are so many different and equally valid ways of watching/enjoying/understanding the film.

So if you ask me "Are they abject symbolism? Wanton surrealism? Willfully meaningless? Added for extra macabre atmosphere?" I'd say: Yes, all of the above, and probably more besides.

The blood!! The blood!!! The blood from her MOUTH!!!
Clowns are totally THE MOST terrifying things ever, anyhoo... The simultaneous jump of the audience who were all a bit sleepy by that point was kinda cool, tho...

because you can take a sort of absolutist interpretation if you want and make it make sense for you. Like you though Joe I think I prefer to not pin certain meanings on things and let the film gnaw away at me without ever really "understanding" it (beyond basic plot stuff of which there wasn't a great deal here)

Three questions! Um, Eraserhead at Hyde Park cinema, was good, and I only fell asleep for about ten minutes.

To be fair, I had very little sleep the night before, and the red bull was starting to go thin...

I think watching it in a complete daze added to the effect. The cinema screen mad ethe visuals stunning too. Otherwise, I though it was a little meh, have I just created DiS/respectable-film-fan suicide?

and nobody's that quick to judge. Especially not me, as I haven't actually seen Eraserhead.

There are some films that almost benefit from a sleepy mood and a sense of concentration that's not quite as sharp as it could be. I was pretty tired when I saw Hidden, and I think that's part of the reason it had such a profound emotional effect on me - because I was less able to follow it with my conscious brain, if that makes sense.

I think it is probably irrational and has no baring on the film as a whole really but I have hated her since that scene in Jurassic Park where she is leaning on her knee and shouting 'Run' to herself, it really bugged the hell out of me.

Additionally though I was in no mood to sit and analyse every image thrown at me and this inevitably rendered me very bored. I had already read about the idea of three seperate interwoven plots so the fun was taken out in that respect.

I didn't read too much about it on purpose.. BUT... I first saw laura dern in Blue Velvet so she is engrained in my head forever in that role (BRILLIANT FILM - WHOO HOO).

How many Seinfeld references?
Damn I loved that programme too...

I was totally in the mood for peering into the darkest corners of my brain when I saw it on Sunday so it worked very very well for me. I couldn't imagine sitting and watching it in any other mental state, to be frank... I was in a LYNCH MOOD.

but still didn't find it remotely boring. I would say I was just revelling in the atmosphere and some of the imagery and letting it wash over me. There was enough going on to keep it interesting I thought.

I didn't question her once, not a flickr of doubt in her performance. Most times, during a film, I will notice the actor's performance - notice them trying to convey something as naturally as possible but failing. With her, It was all brilliant, I found her completely absorbing and believable. EXCEPT in the bits where she was supposed to be acting! She was even acting well playing an average actress playing a role!

As I would expect given that she's an extremely good actress. I just didn't feel that it was a "stand-out" performance and wouldn't be one of the first things I would rush to praise about the film. It just felt like Lynch's ideas and the atmosphere consumed the film (me) to the extent that the actors were just tools in that overall vision and didn't have their own "presence" particularly. I'm not explaining this well...

(see also Hitchcock's comments that actors are cattle, and should be treated like cattle). But sometimes if an actor's work doesn't serve the director's vision, a film can go off half-cocked, especially if it's a central performance. For instance, Jeremy Irons was barely noticeable, and that's as it should be. But you spend so long watching Laura Dern that you can't help but notice how good she is - even if it only strikes you after the film's ended.

Three strikes, and he's outta there. I didn't think his persona was that cuddly (certainly not in Lost Highway), but obviously there's evidence to suggest otherwise. I don't think of him that way, though.

but I only really notice an acting performance that is markedly bad (or the converse). I thought she was good but not outstanding. I haven't seen Lost Highway (I think the only Lynch film I haven't seen) so I can't comment on that.
I absolutely agree that a poor performance of a main character can be ruinous but there was little danger of that happening as she is very talented and has worked with him a lot before.